Man allegedly bots his way to $10M using AI-generated songs, the world's least loved playlist
Ourtake
Turns out the real hit single was the fraud, and the artists paid for it.
What happened
US prosecutors charged a North Carolina man, Michael Smith, with wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. He allegedly bought hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs and streamed them billions of times using up to a thousand bot accounts, obtaining over ten million dollars in royalties diverted from real artists. If found guilty he could face prison.